Thursday, September 10, 2015

Flowers - Watercolours

It took a few attempts, but I managed to paint the flowers the way I wanted after all.

After my first watercolour sketch, I launched straight into a watercolour painting where I tried to capture what I was seeing. From that perspective, it was quite a successful painting. But it was dull. The composition was boring. The colours did not sing. On the other hand, there were some good elements that I could use again. My vase was pretty good. And I had painted some interesting leaves. And my background was quite abstract. Something to build on rather than something to throw away.

I had a little think about it. Went back to one of my Shirley Trevena books. And I decided what my painting needed was: 1. an interesting composition; 2. fabulous colours; 3. strong values (in other words - contrast)

But I wasn't ready for another watercolour just yet. So I decided to take my old pastel box out, bought many many years ago in a shop on the Rue Emile Cuvelier in Namur. That's the beauty of pastels, you see. They don't dry out. They don't go bad. And they give you instant results. An excellent method to explore composition and colours without committing too much time and effort. As you can see, I went for a totally different perspective, I discarded the elements I wasn't interested in. And I added orange. Pink and Orange - my favourite colour combination!

Once I had this, I felt ready to go back to my watercolours and tackle these flowers again - they're nearly two weeks old now, so it was time to get going. Although I have to say they are still looking good! But I'm happy with my final painting. So I'm ready to move on now!